$8,000 Classics Collection From Amazon.com
From WSJ
The Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection, consisting of 1,082 books. List price: $13,317.74. Discount price: $7,989.99. Never has a 40% discount seemed quite so weighty.
Speaking of weight, we’re talking about 700 pounds of books, according to Amazon, which offers some other stats in its editorial review: The books contain nearly half a million pages, and would form an 828-foot-high tower if stacked up. For those of us who live in New York City apartments, it must be said that this is terrifying as well as enticing.
You can sort the books by author (Edwin A. Abbott to Emile Zola) or by title (”Adam Bede” to “Zazie in the Metro”), which is fun in its own right, as are the inevitable arguments that attach themselves remora-like to any great-books list: Eighteen Graham Greene books, yet all you get is “The Portable Faulkner”? “The Beautiful and Damned” but not “The Great Gatsby”? Five Jack Londons? Has anyone really ever read nine Sir Walter Scott novels? Only the first part of “Remembrance of Things Past”? (On the other hand, you’re spared “Ulysses.”)
Another interesting Amazon collection is the $5000 The Criterion Collection Gift Set 2004 of 241 films.